It took the OPP less than 15 years to outgrow its south London dispatch centre.

Determined not to let that happen again, the OPP broke ground on a new 35,000-square-foot communications centre Monday.

The single-storey building at 661 Exeter Rd. will house the 140 civilian and uniform staffers who handle emergency calls for the OPP’s west region, an area that encompasses Southwestern Ontario, and other communications duties.

The new building will be located in the shadow of the OPP’s current dispatch centre, which was built in 2002.

“We have simply outgrown this space,” OPP Comm. Vince Hawkes said of the current centre.

Hawkes and other top OPP brass travelled to London for an official ground-breaking ceremony Monday afternoon.

Also at the event were a handful of emergency dispatchers.

“They’re the lifeline to the officers on the roads,” Hawkes said of the staffers at the 24-hour facility.

The London communications hub — one of five in Ontario — serves around 800,000 residents spread out over 61,000 square kilometres.

The new centre will be wheelchair accessible, outfitted with a gym and have space to accommodate future growth and new technologies.

“It will be a place where we can take care of our people, and ultimately they will take care of the people of Ontario,” Insp. Shawn Johnson said.

Construction on the project, being overseen by Infastructure Ontario, will be completed by spring 2019.